


“can i have this dance?”

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [14]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Gramophone, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-31 11:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21445645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Daisy, disappointed at the lack of good music in her uncle’s collection, sets a vinyl of Cheek to Cheek playing.Hazel suggests a dance.Canon EraWritten for the fourteenth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Daisy Wells/Hazel Wong
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	“can i have this dance?”

Uncle Felix has invested in a gramophone.

Of course, it’s for disgustingly romantic purposes. He and Aunt Lucy have been dancing around the living room romantically at odd hours of the night and it makes me sick, seeing them sway back and forth in each other’s arms. How dare they be so happy? While Bertie kisses in secret dark corners in Cambridge and I stare after girls with dark and glossy hair bouncing from underneath their straw boaters, he dares to be happily married. He dares to be  _ open _ . How horrifyingly unfair, when we cannot!

Naturally, Hazel thinks differently. She thinks that I’m such a cynic and that it’s gloriously romantic, and that she shall certainly do it when she is older and has a husband. When she has a husband and I am creeping around the poor part of the East End to find women. I’ve been in a low mood regarding romance recently.

Their collection of records is certainly sub-par too. Nothing from the Gershwin Brothers or Irving Birling, and barely any records with a woman present anywhere other than in the lyrics. So, naturally, when I see a vinyl record in the window of a shop while out browsing for Sherlock Holmes books, I snatch it up without a second thought.

Aunt Lucy and Uncle Felix are both off across the country once more and I finally produce my record. “Hazel,” I say, and she looks up from her code breaking to gawk at what I am holding.

“You got a  _ vinyl _ ?” she gasped, standing and pushing her hair back behind her ear, streaking the ink from her fingers (she never uses her blotting paper, it’s a ridiculous habit) across her temple. “Who are you and what have you done to my dear Daisy Wells?”

_ My dear Daisy Wells. _

I turn to the gramophone to avoid looking at her, as I’ve blushed to the tips of my ears. 

“Heaven, I'm in heaven. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak,” trills the radio. “And I seem to find the happiness I seek. When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.”

Hazel gasps. “Oh, I  _ adore _ this song! It's heaven, I'm in heaven,” she sings in time with Irving Berlin. “Oh, Daisy! I’ve an idea!”

I turn around and Hazel is hovering just in front of me, her night-dress swishing around her legs and her hair pinned back with a pencil. “Can I have this dance?” she asks, holding out a hand.

“ _ Yes _ .”

Hazel sparkles at me. “ _ Really _ ?”

“Of course,” I say, and I put my hand on her hip. “I’ll lead.”

“And the cares that hung around me through the week,” Hazel sings, her voice washing over me. It’s lower than most girls, granted, but it’s sweet and warm and honeyed. “Seems to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak. When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.”

We begin to step around the room our feet catching on each other and the rugs, and our cold hands sinking chills through the other’s night shirts and onto their skin. I reach up behind Hazel and tug the pencil out of her hair. Her hair falls down her back and she laughs. “Oh, I'd love to climb a mountain and reach the highest peak,” I sing, leaning close to her and down to press my lips against my forehead, so she giggles when my voice vibrates through her. “But it doesn't thrill me half as much as dancing cheek to cheek.”

“You sing well,” she says as we turn about the room and break proper dancing procedure to hold each other closer.

I realise with a jolt that this is not what friends do. Even if Hazel and I are closer than friends normally are, friends do not sway in each other’s arms and dance together. 

“Oh, I'd love to go out fishing,” Hazel songs, blissfully unaware of my internal war. “In a river or a creek. But I don't enjoy it half as much as dancing cheek to cheek.”

“Now Mamma, dance with me. I want my arms about you.” My heart thumps in my chest in the most uncomfortable way, jerking strangely every time I lock eyes with Hazel, or acknowledge my hand on her hip, or realise that our chests are pressed together. “The charms about you will carry me through.”

That lyric is true. Hazel carried me through the horrors of Fallingford, my fear of losing her at Deepdean, my confusion and naivety in Hong Kong, and my first love at the Rue. I carried Hazel through her fear at Deepdean, her starry-eyed confusion and fear of disappointing her father on the Orient Express, her boy-related franticness at Cambridge, the grief that wracked her in Hong Kong, her fear of mummies in the British Museum, and her fear of losing Deepdean.

We carry each other, really. 

“It's heaven, I'm in heaven. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak,” she says, her head resting against my shoulder as we sway side to side, stepping out and in to turn about the room. “And I seem to find the happiness I seek. When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.”

I am never happier than when cheek to cheek with Hazel, faces pressed together as we whisper in some dark cubby with her casebook on our knees, in the midst of some dreadful murder. 

“Heaven, I'm in heaven! And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak,” she echoes, and with one hand in hers I spin her out and away from me, then back to my body. With a shocked shriek, she sings the next lines. “And I seem to find the happiness I seek. When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.”

“Heaven, I'm in heaven,” we sing together, and I lean down to press our foreheads together. We sing into each other’s mouths. “And the cares that hung around me through the week. Seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak. When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.”

“Oh, I'd love to climb a mountain, And to reach the highest peak,” Hazel says, pinching where she holds my hip in a way that brings back a slight of normality. I chuckle. “But it doesn't thrill me half as much as dancing cheek to cheek.”

“Oh, I'd love to go out fishing in a river or a creek.” I remember our summer holiday as I sing this, Hazel awkward in her bathing suit and flushed to her ears at something decidedly  _ not  _ Alexander. “But I don't enjoy it half as much as dancing cheek to cheek.”

“Come on, and dance with me,” I sing, louder than ever. I spin her out and away from me and she squeals, coming back against me hard and stepping on my feet. “I want my arm about you.” I tighten my arm where it is around her firmly. “The charm about you will carry me through to heaven.”

Sorry, Bertie. You cannot possibly compare. You may have Harold to ease your worries but I have my dear Hazel Wong. Nothing may compete with her.

“I'm in heaven,” she whispers, and our chests are pressed so close zu can feel her heart thumping. “And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.”

“And I seem to find the happiness I seek,” I breathe, losing my ability to sing as, nervously, she leans up to me.

“When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek,” she sings softly. 

And she kisses me. And I can scarcely breathe for my astonishment.

Then I laugh and something breaks inside me, and I weep with sheer relief.

“Yes, dance with me, I want my arms about you,” sings Irving Birling, with no idea that his music is fuelling this beautiful moment. “The charms about you will carry me through to heaven.”

We kiss again, her lips fast on mine, and our hands reach all about each other. 

“I'm in heaven, I'm in heaven. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I seem to find the happiness I seek. When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.”

My hand in her hair. 

“Cheek to cheek.”

Her hand on my waist. 

“Cheek to cheek.”

My hand, tentative, on her  _ chest _ .

“Cheek to cheek.”

We kiss, embrace, until the long instrumental fades out, and Hazel leans up to me once more.

She pulls me in, kisses me hard.

We are dancing cheek to cheek. 


End file.
